Catharine Smith serves as inaugural Executive Director of the Termeer Foundation, which carries on the bold legacy of former Genzyme CEO Henri Termeer, who was committed to mentoring emerging leaders and whose dedication to patients resulted in groundbreaking treatments for rare diseases. The Termeer Foundation understands that bringing new treatments to patients is grueling work with a low probability of success and believes we can improve these odds by positively impacting the human variables in healthcare. By supporting biotech leaders, the Foundation seeks to increase the probability of creating cures and solving healthcare’s greatest challenges.

Prior to the Termeer Foundation, Catharine served as the CEO of the Clinton Health Matters Initiative at the Clinton Foundation where she led a team focused on stigma reduction and overdose prevention related to the opioid epidemic. Prior to that, Catharine was the executive director of the Harvard Center for Primary Care where she led business development, strategy, and operations for a think-tank focused on improving value-based, patient-centered care.

Catharine holds a master’s degree in business administration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a graduate degree in social science research from the University of Chicago.